


God Help Me, Part 3

by ErinGayle



Series: God Help Me [3]
Category: Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, M/M, teens making out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:48:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25429435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinGayle/pseuds/ErinGayle
Summary: It's a bang up August 1944 in Falkenheim, Germany.
Relationships: Captain Klenzendorf/Rosie Betzler, Freddy Finkel/Captain Klenzendorf
Series: God Help Me [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819291
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Captain K and Rosie's backstory from Berlin in the 1920's will be posted in a companion work.

#  August 1944

##  Wednesday, August 2

“Captain Klenzendorf,” a cheery voice called to Karl as he sat in a beer garden eating his lunch. Karl turned to his right, because he couldn’t just look that way anymore. “Frau Betzler, what a surprise.”

Rosie parked her bike and cozily joined Karl at his table for one. Karl made what room he could for her on the bench. “Thank you for stopping the ammunition storage.”

Karl shrugged. He had nowhere to put his arm except across the back of the bench and around Rosie. “Well, I ranted and raved about how terrible it would look for the local council if the children of the great German race were to be blown up in their own school by incompetent ammo storage.”

“Where’d they move it?”

“Probably a hospital. I mean, you can’t store stuff like that at party headquarters. It wouldn’t be safe.”

Rosie rolled her eyes. The waiter appeared and asked what she’d be having. “Soup and bread. And, a beer.”

“That’s not much of a lunch,” Karl noted after the waiter had left. 

“You’re a captain. I’m sure you can afford it. Plus, I’m going to share yours.” Rosie speared one of his potato slices with her fork.

Karl gave her a frustrated growl. “I bet you mutinied every time you and your friends played pirate.”

Rosie winked at him. She had indeed mutinied from Captain Karl of the _Siegfried,_ and he’d gone along with it every time. “I still can’t believe there isn’t a Frau Klenzendorf. You must have been exceptionally handsome before your eye got all scrambled.” Rosie cut herself a piece of his schnitzel.

Karl stretched out his legs and decided to play along. “Well, when I tell people how my childhood sweetheart so viciously abused me, they completely understand my aversion to marriage.”

Rosie’s soup and beer arrived, and she stopped eating Karl’s food to eat her own. “I can’t wait for the end of the war. No more watery soup or pissy beer.” Rosie set down her beer mug. “Where’s your minion?”

“Taking one for the team. Fraulein Rahm’s sister brought in some pig foot dish she made. I suddenly had an appointment elsewhere.”

Rosie and Karl talked about minor goings on in the neighborhood, Rosie filling him in on all the gossip. When they were finished, Karl paid the bill, and they walked out of the beer garden together. “That’s a nice bike,” he said of her cream colored bike with a basket and a rainbow painted fender. “What ten year old did you steal it from?”

Rosie smacked his arm playfully, well-aware of how many people knew her and could be seeing her. “You don’t need a lift, do you?”

Karl laughed and shook his head. “It was a pleasure having lunch with you, Frau Betzler.” Karl leaned down and perfunctorily kissed both her cheeks. 


	2. Chapter 2

##  Thursday, August 3

Karl gritted his teeth as the Betzlers’ garden gate squeaked in the still night. He saw an upstairs light on in the house and made his way to the kitchen door. He wasn’t exactly trying to hide. He picked up a rock to tap on the window glass in the door. Upstairs, Rosie was about to turn off the lights and go to sleep. She picked up the fireplace poker and crept to a rear window. She squinted through the darkness and happened to see a glint of matte aluminum buttons and an officer’s cap in the moonlight. Still holding the poker high, she went to the backdoor. If it was Paul, he may have lost his keys. Rosie opened the peep hole. Slumping in relief, she turned the lock and opened the door. 

“What are you doing here?” she whispered as she bustled Karl into the house. “It’s after curfew. I doubt the Gestapo is going to give even a Wehrmacht officer the benefit of the doubt.”

“Giving myself a reputation.” Karl bumped into the wall and used it to hold himself up. 

“By destroying mine?”

“I was pretty convincingly drunk in the _ratskeller **[1]**_. Who knows where I’ll wander to tonight?” Karl said as he smiled his charming yet shy smile.

Rosie sniffed near his cheek. “You’re still drunk. Come on.” She took him into the living room, where she only turned on the small table lamp. “You have to be quiet. Jojo’s room is right behind the kitchen.” She pulled off Karl’s greatcoat and took his hat, hanging them both in the garderobe. “How did you even get my address?”

“I might have looked in the files.” Karl dropped onto the velvet sofa. “So, if you give me an extra pillow, I’ll just pass out right here.”

Rosie sat down next to him and lifted one of his legs into her lap. “Get these boots off before you get dirt and polish all over my couch,” she said, tugging at them. She could feel the leather was new. Karl must still have money.

Karl pulled his feet out of his boots and leaned back over on the arm of the couch as he unbuttoned his uniform blouse. “I’ll be out of here as soon as curfew is over.”

“You’d better be. I don’t want my son thinking I’m having an affair.” Rosie smacked his thigh before getting up to fetch a pillow and blanket. When she came back, Karl was stretched out fully on the couch, his legs falling off the end. His eyes were closed, and he was already lightly snoring. She maneuvered the pillow under his head and spread the blanket over him. She paused before taking the old lipstick from her bathrobe pocket and applying it to her lips.

Rosie knelt beside the couch and pressed her lips firmly against Karl’s. The first time they’d ever kissed she had him cornered against an oak tree in the Grunewald when they were eleven. She kissed his forehead and temples a few times before she dragged a kiss over his jaw and left a blotchy stain on his white shirt’s starched band-collar. She tucked in the blanket and went upstairs to bed.

[1] The pub frequently found under or next to the rathaus (town hall). Literally: the council cellar


	3. Chapter 3

##  Friday, August 4

Karl woke up desperate to pee. He vaguely remembered stumbling into a back gate. Only the painting of a tiger staring at him jogged his memory. Somehow he was at the Betzlers’. He straggled up and pulled on his boots. Having no idea where the bathroom was, he went out the kitchen door to the garden, looked around not too concerned that someone might see him, and relieved himself against the garden wall. He sat on the back stoop and smoked a cigarette before going back inside. The clock was chiming six am. 

Rosie saw Karl come back in for the rest of his uniform. She leaned over the banister. “Good morning, Captain.”

Karl looked up at her. “How drunk was I that I ended up here?”

Rosie laughed. “Tell Freddie to try white alcohol, then ammonia, then gasoline to get that lipstick stain out.”

Karl was so confused by that sentence. “What lipstick?” he asked as he picked up his _feldbluse_ and pulled it on. He kept his eyes on Rosie as she stepped over to him. 

Rosie pulled his collar out so he could see. “It’s all over your face, too. I think I did a good job making it look like you spent the evening cavorting with some cabaret floozy.”

He reached up to his face and pulled his hand away to see the faint, oily red stain. Karl eyed her sensible flannel pajamas. “Well if the floozy’s wearing that, I must not have been very impressive.” Rosie winked as she buttoned him up enough to look rumpled but respectable.

Karl imagined this was how she’d seen Paul off the last time. She set Karl’s hat on his head at a rakish angle. “You’re a life saver, Rosie.” When he hugged her, he felt a locket on a chain. He assumed Paul’s photo was in it, and he remembered his promise to Paul.

“You just look out for my Jojo and yourself. Remember, no one gets to beat up this pretty face but me,” she said pinching his cheek.

A pain flitted across Karl’s eye, and he slowly kissed Rosie just as she began to open the front door. He stepped out into the morning quiet, aware that every step he took was probably seen or heard by someone and duly reported. With his head down and hands shoved deep in his pockets, Karl tried to look appropriately scandalous as he hastily walked away. It was a good walk to the office, and when he got in, Freddie was already up as he was taking the older boys out to set up camp. 

Freddie audibly sighed when Karl sauntered in the apartment. “Karl, I was worried when you didn’t get home by curfew last night.” 

Karl waved off his lover’s worry while walking to the wardrobe. “It’s fine. I was ok. Here,” Karl tossed his used shirt and undershirt to Freddie. “She said to try white alcohol, ammonia, and then gasoline to get those stains out.”

Freddie looked down at the shirt. His face went pale and his stomach dropped when he saw the lipstick stains. “You spent the evening with a woman?”

Karl had a clean undershirt on and was walking into the bathroom. “Don’t worry about it, Freddie. It was nothing.” He affectionately patted Freddie’s arm, still not knowing after two years that nothing to him and nothing to Freddie were two different things. 

That afternoon the office was blessedly quiet. Karl had sent all the teens and Fraulein Rahm home to pack their things, and he had the place to himself. He had found a stash of records and gramophone and listened to Beethoven while he set up the order of battle for the tanks at Brody on the big Oriental carpet. Karl was proudly an infantryman but getting out enough toy soldiers was a hassle, and someone always seemed to walk through them. 

“Heil Hitler,” a smooth and oddly obsequious voice said.

Karl looked over his right shoulder and remembered he couldn’t see that way anymore. He stood up only to face perhaps the tallest man he’d ever seen. “Heil Hitler.” He looked up at the man’s square face. It was like being ten again. 

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Captain Herman Deertz of the Falkenheim Gestapo.”

“Captain Karl Klenzendorf.”

Deertz took off his hat and coat, even though it was a gentle August day and unnecessary to have worn them at all. Seeing no garderobe or hat stand, he laid his things across Gerti’s desk. “I see you are playing with your toy tanks.”

“Setting them up for next week with the older boys. Do you recognize it?”

Deertz realized he had walked into foreign territory where his authority was not going to be automatically recognized. “No.”

“Brody. I haven’t decided what to use to mark the cities yet. Perhaps there are some blocks around here.”

“You are a veteran of the Eastern Front?”

“Yes.” Karl still stood exactly where he had first seen the giant.

“Where?”

“Where not?” Karl laughed.

“I see you’ve lost an eye.”

“Matched the one I have left.”

“Where?”

“Minsk.”

Deertz knew he’d lost round one. There was simply no response to _Minsk_ in any conversation. It was a conversational dead end. “Might we sit down?”

“Of course.” Karl led Herr Deertz into the paneled office. “Drink?”

Deertz slightly frowned to see Karl pouring himself whiskey at three in the afternoon.

“Cigarette?”

Deertz fully frowned. “Is it appropriate to smoke in front of the youth?”

Karl took a long drag on his cigarette. “Have you ever been to Russia?”

“No, I haven’t.

“Did you know that it is so cold in Russia that your damn lungs freeze from the inside out, and your blood will turn to ice in your veins? Drinking and smoking are just about the only ways to stay alive in a Russian winter.” Karl leaned back in his chair.

“Why have you spent so much time on the Eastern Front?”

“Mówię dobrze po polsku.[1] I dovol'no prilichnyy russkiy.[2]” Karl smirked a bit. “I was in Köngisberg for a while. I picked up Polish and Russian.”

Deertz weakly smiled. Klenzendorf was already irking him. “Well, I just wanted to come by and familiarize myself with our new _Jugend_ leader.”

Karl smiled. “You caught us about to have our summer training weekend. My deputy is out with the older boys setting up, and Fraulein Rahm, our girls’ leader and secretary, is at home arranging her packing.”

“And you’re here listening to Mozart and playing with your tanks.”

All his life Karl had been aware that his upbringing was far more privileged than most. But not being able to recognize the difference between Beethoven and Mozart pointed to simple laziness. “In case there’s a panicked parent.”

“Do you know Frau Betzler?”

“She’s the assistant headmistress at the school.”

“Yes. You had lunch with her on Wednesday.”

“Purely coincidental.”

“And this morning?”

“I did not have lunch with her this morning.”

“What about breakfast?”

Karl slowly took the cigarette from his mouth and tapped the ashes into the metal ashtray. “She seems like a very lovely woman. Very chic.”

“She’s not a widow, yet. I believe she and Herr Betzler own the house. He did very well for himself in building oil pipelines in the Middle East. Iran, or maybe Arabia. And, of course there’s the money from the sale of the Betzler family business. It would be a nice way to end the war: ensconced with a financially secure, young widow.”

Karl sat and stared, hopefully looking shocked. The less he said the better for him and Rosie. It was interesting that Paul had moved his family to Falkenheim then worked in the Middle East.

“And where are you living?” Deertz continued.

“There’s a passable place upstairs. It’s covered, has heat, a bed, a real bathroom. Luxurious actually when compared to living out of the back of a staff car.”

Deertz half smiled while nodding his head. “You’ve lived very rough, haven’t you?”

Karl nodded.

“And what about your sergeant? Finkle I believe?”

“Friedrich Finkle. Competent man. Excellent young leader.”

Deertz had a way of reassuringly nodding at the beginning of an interrogation and at the end once his victim was broken. “That’s good to hear the young men have such a role model.”

“So, tell me, Herr Deertz, how did you escape military service?”

Deertz sighed regretfully. “I was too tall. There were no uniforms to fit me. So, I had to serve the Fuhrer in this way.”

“Of course.” Karl doubted the veracity of Deertz’s excuse.

Realizing he had come to the end of innocuous conversation, Deertz stood up before Karl could ask any other personal questions. “Well, I will be on my way, and you can get back to the battle of Brody. Have a good weekend with the children. Heil Hitler.”

Karl stood up behind his desk. “Pleasure to meet you. Heil Hitler.” He sat down and watched Deertz walk the long way to Rahm’s desk, detouring around the battle of Brody. Deertz took his hat and coat and left without further word or a wave. Karl wondered about the wisdom of locking the front door from now on. The children were used to being able to come and go as they pleased. They were much less annoying and worrisome than Herr Deertz.

At seven pm, Karl had long finished setting up his battle. He sat at his desk, quietly drinking and thinking. He heard the doors open and close and weary footsteps on the stairs. “We’re all set up, Captain.”

Karl saw an exhausted Freddie leaning in the door. “What was worse? The set up or handling those boys?”

Freddie shook his head. “I’m just going to clean up and go to bed.”

“You should do that,” Karl said as he stubbed out his cigarette. “Do you want any dinner?”

“I’d like a decent beer.”

“Wouldn’t we all?” Karl followed Freddie upstairs. While Freddie took a frigid shower due to no fuel for the boiler, Karl sliced off a few pieces of brown bread and some hard cheese onto a plate. He put the plate on the dining table with a bottle of pickled vegetables and two beers. 

Freddie finished his shower, roughly drying himself with his old towel. He dressed in only his underwear and t-shirt. Freddie ate mechanically, though he felt like he should be talking to Karl. He watched the way Karl ate bread. Karl never ate the whole piece but always broke it into pieces. The same with cheese. Karl never talked about his life before the army or his relations, and Freddie was certain he was from a well off family which had fallen on hard times or disowned him. They had found some wine in the attic, and while Freddie thought it was fine, Karl quipped that the vintner must have forgotten what grapes were.

“Finished?” Karl asked when he saw Freddie’s eyelids droop. He knew that one beer would finish off Freddie for the night. The man could not hold his alcohol at all. 

“Yes. Thanks. Those kids ran me ragged, Karl. I spent more time stopping them from being idiots than getting stuff up.”

Karl smiled and tousled Freddie’s hair as he picked up the dinner. “Well, you deserve a good night’s sleep. I’m going out.”

Freddie frowned. “You are?” he asked plaintively. 

Karl sighed and brushed damp blonde hair from Freddie’s forehead. “Freddie, when you reach my age, committed bachelor means you either have a flaw no woman will tolerate, or you are a flaming faggot. No one cares at the front. But, in town, it’s noticed.”

“Karl, who is it?”

Karl shook his head. “I’ll lock the doors.”

Freddie wanted to object, but he knew he couldn’t. Karl outranked him, and who were they going to believe him or Karl? He had thought the weeks taking care of Karl in Berlin would give him more of an equal footing. He knew Karl had an ever wandering eye, yet he still tried to convince himself that Karl would one day tamp down that impulse.

Karl took a roundabout route to the Betzlers’ back gate. He more carefully opened it this time and hoped Jojo was in bed. Tapping on the door glass summoned Rosie once more, still armed with the fireplace poker. Karl was leaning nonchalantly on the doorpost. He held up the bottle of wine. 

“Captain Klenzendorf,” Rosie said reproachfully.

“It’s a beautiful evening. I thought it would be nice to spend it with someone not in a uniform.”

Rosie frowned angrily. “It’s quite an imposition. My son is just now in the bathtub, and he’s so excited about tomorrow, he’ll never fall asleep.”

Karl sighed heavily enough for the neighbors to hear. “So, where is the best place for a man to have a bottle of wine and think on the thoughts of the day?”

Rosie smiled a bit but had a trace of disgust in her voice in case of nosey neighbors. “Most drunks gather down by the old lock on the river.”

Karl winked at Rosie and left, making sure the gate was latched. He walked to the river by himself, found a place beneath the trees on the bank and stretched out atop his spread greatcoat to watch the moon rise. He heard the whirr of a bicycle and soft skid of a bike tire braking. Soon enough, Rosie sat down to the left of him. “So, where’s that bottle of wine?”

“How’d you get away from your son?” Karl opened his pen knife, cut the band, and stabbed into the cork. 

“I told him I had to go out and help a sick friend get in and out of the bath.”

Karl looked over at Rosie. “And he believed that?” 

“I’ve worked hard to keep him innocent.” Rosie heard the cork pop and reached into her bag. “Here, let’s be a little civilized,” she suggested as she presented Karl with two crystal wine glasses. 

Karl smiled and poured them both a glass. “Prost,” he toasted.

“Prost.” After a sip Rosie pursed her lips. “This is awful.”

“And, we found a case. Freddie thinks it’s fine.”

“Freddie’s from Dortmund.” 

Karl leaned back in the long summer grass. “Do you remember the first time you drank a bottle of wine outside under the trees with a man?”

Rosie giggled. “In the Grunewald with my childhood sweetheart. Spring 1917. There was hardly any food in the shops, and we had a 1900 Chateau Margaux Bordeaux his father had brought back from the France. It was supposed to be for celebrating the German victory, and two thirteen year olds consumed it in a little bower on the banks of the Havel. It was also the first day I let him under my dress.”

Karl smiled remembering that day. They had not gone back to school after lunch, and no one noticed. “You scandalous woman. I bet his father beat him good for filching that bottle. One of the finest vintages ever.”

“He never said.” Rosie leaned back on her elbows.

Karl put his arm around Rosie’s shoulders. He inhaled the mix of her perfume and her makeup and the soap she used. He briefly pressed his lips against her neck. “I had a visit from a giraffe today,” he whispered. “He asked how I found breakfast at your house.”

Rosie lifted her glass to her lips. “He’s a nosey freak. He used to manage the coal depot,” she whispered into her wine.

“Everyone is watching everyone.” Karl kissed her low near her shoulder

Rosie slid her hand through his short hair, cradling his head in her palm. “Deertz is an unusually vicious and cruel man. He doesn’t look it, but anyone who doesn’t buckle under is hounded to death.” She felt her eyes tearing as she remembered how Karl had looked the last time she saw him: tired and defeated with a black eye and bruised jaw watching the publishing house he’d founded burn on a beautiful spring morning. Rosie laid her head on his chest. “I cried for you for weeks. Leo said you were fine, but I couldn’t stop crying. It irritated Paul to no end.”

Karl kissed her several times, though he felt quite satisfied that she had missed him so terribly. His tears at her wedding had not been tears of joy. “I’m sorry it hurt you, but I had to leave.”

“That’s what your godfather said. I still missed you horribly.” Rosie would never tell him she had been angry with him for leaving her.

“You _did_ marry Paul.”

“I was supposed to wait for you forever?” she asked looking up at him. “Do you have any idea how many people told me to just get pregnant, so you’d marry me? Everyone, even your gay buddies Tomas and Lars, and they didn’t even like me.”

“They liked you.”

Rosie would forever disagree. “It was probably for the best I married Paul though. What would have happened to me? My name would have been on your editorials as well.”

Karl stroked the back of her neck. Eventually, they both would have been found floating in the Landwehr Canal, each with a shot to the back of the head courtesy of the SA. “You being married to Paul and having Inge probably saved your life more than once.”

“A General of Infantry showing up at my apartment in the official car with two soldiers probably helped, too. Leo made it look like he and I were having an affair for a while. I heard he passed away last year.”

Karl nodded. “It was right before Kursk. I couldn’t go to the funeral. Probably for the best.” He kissed her forehead. “Are you being safe?”

“What are you talking about?” Rosie asked too quickly.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Rosie smiled as she sat up. “I’m the assistant headmistress of a school. You think I could get away with anything?”

Karl eyed her looking down at him. “You are one of the most devious people I know.”

“Says the man with someone else’s name.” Rosie playfully tapped him on the lips, and he caught her finger in them. He only had one of his beautiful brown eyes now. The other was scrambled and pale. She felt his hand slide around her waist, settling in the small of her back. His fingers toyed with the hem of her close cut, thin white blouse. “It’s been a long time, Karl.”

Karl could only gaze up at her. His life could have been so different. “Almost sixteen years, exactly.”

Rosie slid her hand over Karl’s _feldbluse_. The last time she’d seen Paul he’d been wearing a tan, waxed-cotton uniform and complained of freezing during the April meetings in Berlin. He joked about putting on the plain OCS blouse he left hanging on the hat tree and being an anonymous, ignorant naif for a few days. Paul spent a few days at home, long enough to have new family photos taken and fix a few things around the house. “I miss him so much,” she whispered.

Karl sat up and pressed his forehead against Rosie’s. He well remembered Paul’s threat and his promise in return. But, Paul wasn’t here and might never come back. Karl could almost taste Rosie’s skin. He pushed her hair behind her ears as he nuzzled her cheek. “You’re wearing the sapphire earrings I gave you.”

Rosie unbuttoned the second button of Karl’s tunic. “Paul assumed they were my mother’s.”

“You wore them to your wedding,” he reminded her with a wry smile.

Rosie lifted her eyes to his as she unbuttoned his next button. “I’ll never love anyone the way I love you. I love Paul, but you….” 

“You’re a married woman and a mother, Rosie Betzler, as you reminded me the last morning we saw each other in Berlin.” Karl felt her unbutton the fourth button. “And, this blouse only has five buttons.”

Rosie slid into his lap and unbuckled his field belt. “I haven’t seen my husband since April 1942.” Her hand caressed his cheek as she unbuttoned the fifth button. “And, you’re going to make love to me.”

Karl kissed his way down her neck. “Why on earth would I ever do that, Frau Betzler?”

Rosie took his chin firmly in her fingers. “Because you’re still an irredeemably promiscuous slut.” She smiled as she kissed him delicately. “You cut a wide and deep swath through the respectable gay men of Berlin.”

“And a few disreputable ones as well. But, only one woman,” Karl softly laughed. He laid down on his back and smiled up at her as he kissed the pale luminous skin of her wrist and inner arm. He watched her unbutton the small pearly buttons of her white blouse. Once undone the slight evening breeze ruffled the thin fabric, and Karl slid his hand beneath it caressing her as his hand glided up her back and unfastened her bra. His fingers slipped beneath the soft cotton and around to Rosie’s breast. Touching her was like lighting in his hand. He felt her nipple tighten and her chest heave a bit. He closed his hand gently on her whole breast. Rosie bent down and kissed Karl, tentatively for the first moment and then with a longing she had never admitted. It had been years since she’d really kissed a man. Karl felt the desperation in her kiss. No matter what he had promised Paul, Paul hadn’t been here to take care of the woman they both loved. And, Karl was. With Rosie Karl knew this was not going to meaningless. He needed her to at least pretend to want him to keep suspicion at bay. However, even more, he wanted her to truly need him. 

Because Herr Deertz, the long necked swine, had spoken the frightening, intrusive thought that rattled around Karl’s head deep in the night, when it was cold and the loneliness he felt wasn’t going to be assuaged by sex with a man or even a real open relationship with a man as his equal, like a wife might be. The thought that frightened Karl was that he would be better off coming to some accommodation with a pleasant woman to marry and keep her and her children first and his lovers secret and second. If he was an adult, he would trade true happiness for financial and personal security and to protect his family. He would wear an invisible costume and mask for the rest of his life. The thought bedeviled him no matter how much he denied it to himself. 

While Karl’s mind had wandered, he and Rosie had shoved off shirts and blouse, tugged off shoes and tossed them, pulled away trousers and skirt and underwear. She lay atop him, her lips ranging over his face and neck, down to his chest and then his stomach. Her toes were curling and uncurling on his shins. He felt his groin tighten as her mouth paused near his shaved pubis. Karl opened his eyes to see her pursed lips then her sweet nose, her blue eyes and, finally, the perfectly rounded moon of her bottom. He reached down with his right hand and caressed her cheek as he closed his eyes again and relaxed into the satiny lining of his coat. He inhaled sharply at her wet lips on him and gasped as her warm mouth closed tightly around him. He settled his hand in her hair and let her go at her own pace. She’d always been good at this. He listened to the twilight around him. The frogs, the rustle of the leaves, the burbling of the river. Karl tried to control his breathing that fellatio might last longer, but Rosie’s mouth was insistent. She’d always been insistent. He may have been the man in their relationship, but she had always been in charge. 

Karl felt his entire body clench and utterly release. His hand was clamped on the back of Rosie’s neck, and she gently pulled it away without ever releasing him from the far back of her throat. She could hear and feel Karl’s feathery breathing. She eased her mouth from him and slowly kissed her way across his scarred stomach and chest until she was gazing down into his eyes. Karl knew many men who wouldn’t kiss a lover after such an act. But, he felt that if someone was going to so intimately engage him with their mouth, he couldn’t reject their next kiss. Karl pulled Rosie’s lips to his and kissed her deeply. He shifted his lips on hers just enough that he could flitter his tongue over hers. He knew what semen tasted like and didn’t care if it was his.

Rosie felt Karl’s arms wrap around her back. It wasn’t a gentle hug; it was a powerful marble like grip. Rosie landed on the satin; Karl’s weight shifted off to her side. His leg was between hers. As he lay on his side, his leg forced hers apart. Rosie looked up at Karl. He barely smiled before he barely kissed her. His arm under Rosie’s back reached for her nipple and breast without ever releasing its power. His other hand settled on her neatly trimmed triangle of reddish blonde hair. He knew how to touch her, and now Rosie relaxed while Karl’s fingers massaged the delicate and slippery flesh. Rosie draped her free arm over Karl’s scarred shoulder, feeling the shrapnel scars that marred his back, and rubbed her cheek on his short damp hair while his teeth grazed over her nipples. 

Rosie didn’t care that it wasn’t Paul naked on the banks of the river with her. She didn’t care that it was Karl. For a few brief moments, she was experiencing ecstasy that she only found from another. Someone else was kissing and caressing her as she hadn’t been touched in years. Someone else knew how to hold her and arouse her. And when she finally felt that hot, shimmering pulse fly through her body and out her fingertips and toes, only she and someone else were going to momentarily exist. Everything about the war would be gone: the worry, the fear, the anger, the dread.

She thought about Karl and those summer afternoons in the Grunewald. He was only thirteen, but he’d listened to what she told him to do. Even as adults, she sat possessively in his lap when they went out together, her arm around his shoulders, judging the men he flirted with. He rarely spent a night alone. He was either with a boyfriend or Rosie. She would kiss him in front of other men, and he would never think not to return the kiss with an equal passion or demureness. She whispered to him, and he complied. 

She suddenly felt the need to stroke her body against his fingers in her. Karl applied more pressure as Rosie’s hips lifted up. He felt her legs trying to come together and he used his weight and strength to keep her thighs apart and her hips from rolling. Caught in the vise of his arms and legs. Rosie’s out-stretched arm fell onto the coat. She grabbed the grass above her head as she inhaled. She half gasped and groaned. She wanted to hold Karl, all of him at once. And she suddenly could as he moved on top of her, his arms under her back, her feet on the backs of his hips pushing him into her. His hands on either side of her head holding her in place so that he could kiss her lips as wide and deeply as he wanted. Karl gasped as he felt the dizzying release. He lay still for a moment then he pushed himself up and turned over onto his side.

Rosie turned onto her side as well. She kissed Karl’s lips then his nose and finally his forehead. When she sat up, Karl stroked the small of her back. A moonlit sheen glistened on her pale skin. She reached for their wine glasses and gave Karl his. He watched her empty hers. 

“Terrible but does the job.” Rosie pulled on her thin shirt against the coolness.

“You’re going to get cold,” Karl said as he reached for his field-grey wool blouse. He watched her put it on. She looked slutty yet beautiful with the contrast between the stern _feldbluse_ , the lacey top, and Rosie’s white breasts. She refilled her glass and slipped down beside him.

Karl put an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “Rosie, that day in the Grunewald when we drank the Chateau Margaux, where was your underwear?”

“Karl, I’ve just cheated on my husband for the first time ever. I need a few moments to think about that.”

“That’ll be five Our Father’s and three Hail Mary’s.” He reached into his blouse pocket and took out his cigarette case for a smoke.

“I had no idea adultery was so cheap.” She listened to his heart and wondered how many others he’d ever given that chance. “What do you miss most about how Berlin was?” Rosie asked him after a bit. “I miss dancing all night.”

“I miss cocaine,” Karl answered honestly, exhaling from his cigarette.

“That’s a terrible answer.”

“I’d rather be snorting cocaine than popping Pervitin. I come down from a cocaine binge, and I sleep fine. After a couple of days of Pervitin, I sleep for days and have nightmares even when I’m awake. Or people keep waking me up, and it’s more Pervitin to stay awake for the duty day and then inhale some ether or find some phenobarb to get to sleep. God, I don’t know how the Army survives. We’re all either high, stoned, or paranoid from sleep deprivation.”

Rosie ran her hand over the scars on Karl’s right shoulder. “Is this the same wound as your eye?” She’d seen the others and didn’t want the run-down of when and where.

Karl grimaced. He had stoically listened as the doctors debated how to save his arm from infection and him from sepsis. He was lucky to have escaped with only one less eye. “Yes, Soviet grenade did its job. Then I fell into a burning field of ground up dirt, diesel, other people’s body parts, and horseshit. But, the white-hot shrapnel also hit my eye.”

“I’m sorry,” Rosie murmured as she kissed his right cheek.

Karl tried to laugh. “And, the real irony is I shoot with my left eye. The right was just good for reading and being handsome.”

They lay there with one another, drinking and kissing, until they heard the bells of a nearby church chiming ten o’clock. It was nearly full dark. They redressed, Rosie giving Karl his blouse. Karl shook out his greatcoat, hoping it wasn’t too stained. Rosie picked up her bike, and they walked back to the road. 

“Want a lift?”

“Why not? Here, put on my coat and hold my hat.” Karl took Rosie’s bag with the wine glasses and slung it across his body. He straddled the bike, and Rosie gathered the greatcoat’s skirt around her so it wouldn’t get caught in the wheel and balanced herself on the handlebars. Karl pushed off, and after a few wobbles they were on their way, as if nearly twenty-seven years hadn’t passed.

Karl brought the bike to a stop at the back gate. “Oh, my God. I think I’d rather go up against a tank.” He was breathing heavily from random panic as careening trucks had passed them on the road.

Rosie hopped off the handlebars. “You were great.” She took off Karl’s coat and handed it and his hat back to him, and he gave her the wine glasses. As Karl put on his coat, he leaned down to kiss Rosie, but only got her swiftly turned cheek. “Karl,” she said softly. “If you need me, it can’t be too public, just enough for gossip. Not until we find out about Paul.”

Karl kissed Rosie’s other cheek. “I never did find out where my sweetheart’s underwear was.”

Rosie opened her gate and wheeled in the bicycle. When she closed the gate, she leaned over it and whispered in Karl’s ear, “You assume she had some on in the first place. Take care of my Jojo this weekend.”

Karl waited in the alley until Rosie had closed her back door and the light turned off. He walked home, passing the local police patrol. “ _Abend **[3]**_ , Herr Captain.” Karl curtly nodded and continued unimpeded. He unlocked the front doors of the building with an iron key and immediately relocked them. He checked every door on the way to the third floor. From now on every one of them was to be locked at all times unless the room was being used. He couldn’t lock out the children, but there were going to be no more surprise visits from Herr Deertz.

Freddie heard the doors open and close and Karl on the stairs. From the church bells, it was nearly eleven. He tried to pretend he was asleep and waited until Karl had picked his way across the floor, hitting the occasional squeak, before turning over. “You’re back.”

Karl sat down on his bed, separated from Freddie’s by the standard one meter. “I said I would be.” He pulled off his boots and started unbuttoning his blouse.

Freddie smelled something musky and flowery at the same time. The only light in the room was from a small table lamp on the other side of Karl’s bed. “You slept with Her.”

Karl rolled his eyes. “For God’s sake, not now, Freddie.”

Freddie sat up in bed. “You’ve been here two weeks, and you’ve already started sleeping around! How do you even know anybody!”

“Freddie…” Karl sighed and knelt down by Freddie’s bed. He leaned forward on the mattress. “Come on, Freddie. I’ve always been a friendly guy.”

Freddie could smell a woman’s scent, and the scent of sex even more strongly. “Get away from me. You smell disgusting.” Betrayal raged in Freddie’s thoughts. He had taken care of Karl that morning. He had made sure Karl didn’t drag himself out of that building broken and bedraggled. He had spent weeks cossetting him. And, now within two weeks, Karl had gone out and found a woman to screw when he would barely let Freddie touch him?

“OK. I’ll take a shower.” Karl got up tiredly and finished stripping off his clothes. He left them in a heap at the foot of his bed and walked naked to the bathroom. 

Freddie listened for the water to turn on followed by the now de rigueur, “ _Gottverdammt_!” when Karl stepped into the frigid spray. Freddie picked up the blouse as if it were defiled. He sniffed it. “Oh, my God! She was wearing your clothes!” he quietly hissed. “If you think I’m washing that, you are quite mistaken.” He petulantly kicked the pile across the room. When he saw the greatcoat hanging on the garderobe, he stopped himself from smelling it. If She wore the blouse, She probably wore the coat. 

Freddie was beside himself to figure out who She was. He saw the beds separated with military precision. They weren’t heavy. The apartment was one large room anyway. And, the beds had been pushed together when they arrived. With a minimum of effort, Freddie pushed his bed together with Karl’s and got back into the now double bed on his side.

Karl showered quickly, but thoroughly. He didn’t want to fool with jealousy tonight. He came out of the bathroom drying his hair. When he saw the beds, he said nothing. He tossed his towel into the relocated pile of laundry, turned out the light, and got in bed. Freddie was angrily facing away from Karl. “Freddie?” Karl asked as he gently settled his hand on Freddie’s hip. 

“I don’t want to hear it. There’s always an excuse.”

Karl moved closer to Freddie, letting his hand slide over Freddie’s hip to his stomach, though careful not to tickle him. Freddie was ridiculously ticklish. “We’ve been through thick and thin together. We’ve taken care of each other.”

“Oh yes. I cook, clean, do your laundry, polish your boots, run your errands, and then I also complete my actual military duties. Meanwhile you’re off in the officers’ mess or some hotel bar or wherever you’ve met this one. Gay means you like men. Not men when you can’t find a woman.”

Karl nestled his head behind Freddie’s on Freddie’s pillow. “I know. I didn’t realize that I liked men until my late teens, early twenties. By then I’d had several girlfriends, paid for enough prostitutes. But, there is something about women I still like and desire.”

“Wives, marriage, children, a home, respectability, deniability. Keeping your real love a dirty secret.”

Karl kissed Freddie’s shoulder. He dragged his rough cheek across Freddie’s silky skin and nuzzled his ear. Karl’s tongue expertly traced around the outer whorl and Freddie shivered deep within. Karl’s other hand had stroked Freddie to engorgement. 

“I can’t believe you,” Freddie weakly objected. 

“You accuse me of so much. You know I wouldn’t have made it if you hadn’t pulled me out of that fire and into the aide station. You took care of me last month in Berlin when I would’ve preferred drinking enough courage to shoot myself. If it weren’t for you…”

Freddie was ashamed that he couldn’t stand up to Karl. Maybe it was their rank or age difference or the obvious difference in social class. Freddie often felt like the commoner plucked from an adoring crowd by the prince. Karl was a friendly, popular guy even with men who weren’t gay. He laughed easily. He told educated jokes Freddie sometimes didn’t get, but the officers did. Karl exuded the confidence of men who were raised knowing the world was theirs, no matter what. Freddie turned onto his back and looked up at Karl, barely able to see him except from the moonlight. Freddie dragged his hand over Karl’s short unruly, hair. He suddenly pulled Karl’s lips down to his.

Karl kissed Freddie at least as well as he had kissed Rosie. He’d found little difference in the kisses of men and women, except that men sometimes had more facial hair. He knew Freddie wanted “real sex” as Freddie termed it. “Alright,” Karl whispered and sat up. Karl knew Freddie easily accepted a more passive role in love making. Right now, Karl couldn’t let Freddie be in control.

Freddie followed Karl as Karl lay down on his back. He put his arm under his head while Freddie eagerly wet Karl’s erection. It didn’t take Freddie long to make sure Karl was wet and slippery. He felt Karl’s phallus pulse and eased away his mouth. Now it was Freddie who lay back, his head on a pillow as Karl settled his hips on Freddie’s slenderer hips and between his golden haired thighs. Freddie winced as he was penetrated, but took a deep breath then sighed. He bent his legs up to give Karl a better path. Karl’s right arm held Freddie around the chest while his left hand stroked Freddie’s hair. Karl roughly kissed Freddie’s neck and cheek. Freddie shifted his own erection in between their stomachs to take advantage of the friction from Karl. Freddie felt Karl thrust forward and heard his gasp and finally allowed himself to orgasm as well. For a few minutes Karl collapsed on Freddie, who wrapped his arms around Karl. He thought by now he knew the track of every scar on Karl’s back.

“That was perfect,” Freddie sighed as he kissed Karl. 

Karl took a deep breath and carefully withdrew. They couldn’t risk messing up the sheets. Freddie hastened to the bathroom. He always had to go to the toilet after sex. Karl quietly joined Freddie in the bathroom and washed his genitals and stomach without comment. He returned to bed, and Freddie eventually came back as well. He found Karl on Karl’s side of the bed, lying on his side with the sheet and blanket pulled tightly to him. He kissed Karl’s cheek. Karl thought it was ridiculous his stomach was in a knot and that he had tears desperately pushing against his eyelids.

“Love you, Karl.” Freddie lay on his back but reached out to pat Karl’s hip. Karl made himself not flinch.

[1] I speak good Polish.

[2] And pretty decent Russian.

[3] Evening


	4. Chapter 4

##  Saturday, August 5

Karl woke up the next morning, still tightly balled up and clinging to the covers. He smelled eggs and potatoes frying and felt a sharp pain in his lower back.

“Breakfast is ready. I made that Austrian thing you like.”

“Tiroler,” Karl reminded. “What time is it?”

“5:30. Sun’s up. The trucks will be here at 6:45. Kids’ll be in at 7. The older boys are ruck marching out there.”

Karl sighed. Older meant the fourteen and fifteen year old boys. “OK. I’ll meet you out there at 9.”

“You’re driving Gerti out.”

Karl rolled his eyes. “Don’t let her girth fool you. She can probably walk to Berlin and back before you and I.”

“Yeah, if there’s a bakerei every two kilometers.”

Karl laughed as well as Freddie. “Or a biergarten.”

Freddie couldn’t believe how hard it was getting the children to settle down for the night. After all they’d done all day, he thought they’d be exhausted. The book burning bonfire seemed to have wound them all up again. As he made his checks around the camp, he saw Karl sitting under a tree and went to join him. “Captain?”

“Good evening, Sergeant Finkle.” Karl had half a cigarette in his hand.

“What are you doing, sir?”

“I’m waiting for the older boys to decide you and I are asleep and sneak out to go drink the beer they stashed in the stream.”

“What beer?” Freddie asked with alarm. He had made certain there was nothing hidden on the trucks.

Karl held up a sack of clinking bottles. He pulled one out and offered it to Freddie, who took it. “I’m thinking they each stashed one or two in their rucks. I mean, that’s what I would do.”

Freddie opened the purloined beer and smiled. “Yeah, me too.” He sat down under the tree with Karl, and they quietly waited, drinking the boys’ beer. The giggling as the boys ran through the grass and into the woods carried over the night, as did the disappointed and confused groans when they discovered their stash stolen. Karl and Freddie tapped their beer bottles together and softly laughed.


	5. Chapter 5

##  Sunday afternoon, August 6

Despite the warm sun and startling blue sky, there was a pall over Karl now. Freddie sat on the bench near the hospital entrance with him waiting for Rosie Betzler. Freddie looked down at Karl’s hand. It was in his pocket and his fingers were rubbing something. He knew Karl kept a fancy set of Catholic beads in his pocket. He didn’t see the purpose to them as the only time Karl got them out was if he drank too much on Sundays. The doctors had deferred calling Rosie until they knew what chance of survival Jojo had. He was out of surgery, on a ward, and would only have scars. Now, Karl and Freddie had to await the oncoming storm. The official car which had been sent for Rosie pulled into the curved driveway of the military hospital. The driver got out and opened the door for Rosie. When he saw her, Karl sighed and stood up. “Time to reap the whirlwind.”

Rosie walked right up to Karl, and Karl, having known Rosie for thirty years, should have been prepared. Rosie said nothing as she approached. The anger on her face was obvious. “Fraooooffff,” Karl tried to breathe after Rosie hit him with a gut punch. Freddie could only stare. Her left upper cut knocked Karl backwards, then the right cross had him stumbling and bent, and the coup de gras of a backhand with her purse put him down. 

Freddie was down trying to help Karl get up. Rosie bent over and shook her finger at Karl. “One thing I asked of you, Captain, and you fucked that up.”

Karl couldn’t see straight. He couldn’t inhale, and he couldn’t object or even explain himself. Freddie almost said something, but when he considered how hard Rosie could punch, he nodded for Karl. Rosie left them on the sidewalk and went into the hospital. Freddie managed to get a shoulder under Karl’s arm and lift him to the bench. Karl leaned back, breathing in and out as well as he could. “I should have seen that coming.”

“Who would ever see that coming!”

Karl half laughed. “Anyone who knows Rosie Betzler, I bet.” In fact, Karl was thinking about Willie Muhlfeld. He was a year ahead of them in school, and one day he’d been teasing some of the younger children and taking their ball. Rosie had walked up to him, gut punch, left upper cut, right cross, and backhand with her leather satchel. When she was done she tossed the ball back to the younger children and took Karl’s hand to walk into the school together. He’d been afraid to look at her but chanced it and saw a slight smile. He never mentioned it again, but he had written his father at the front. His father’s reply was, _I’m glad Adelheid knows it is our duty to defend the weak. Why didn’t you?_


	6. Chapter 6

##  Monday, August 14

Freddie visited the hospital every day for an update on Jojo, which he relayed to Karl, who refused to leave the office except for his early evening walks. Freddie was able to go during commanders’ hour and avoid running into Rosie during regular visiting hours. He did cross paths with her one morning as the doctors were explaining to Rosie how long Jojo would be out of school. Rosie had a worried look on her face and held a handkerchief tightly in her hand. That afternoon, Freddie pruned the tea roses in the church yard partly because he couldn’t stand to see the bushes unpruned another moment. While he stripped the thorns from the clipped flowers., Freddie thought about Rosie alone for so long. He found an old newspaper and wrapped the flowers then took them over to the Betzlers’. 

Rosie saw Freddie through her peephole. She opened the door, saw the bouquet, and slammed the door. Freddie knocked again. The door barely opened. “Tell Captain Klenzendorf I do not want or appreciate his flowers.” And the door snapped shut.

Freddie tried to talk through the space between the door and the door jamb. “They aren’t from Captain K. He has no idea I’m here or have flowers.”

Minimally mollified, Rosie opened the door again. Freddie smiled in response to her skeptical eyes. “I saw you this morning in the hospital, and you looked so upset. I thought these might cheer you up.”

Rosie eyebrows jumped up in surprise. “You did?” She took the proffered flowers. “They’re very lovely. Where…did these come from the church?” 

Freddie tried to smile away the skeptical headmistress tone he heard. “The bushes needed pruning anyway. And Captain K is really sorry and upset.” Freddie acted as though this was not a proxy peace offering.

“For Jojo or himself? I’ve known men like Klenzendorf. They specialize in polite selfishness.”

“Both,” Freddie admitted. “But, he’s prayed with those Catholic beads every night since. You have no idea how slightly creepy it is that he is on his knees whispering for over an hour every night. Usually it’s only Sundays when he gets drunk too early in the day. He hates church.”

“He prays the rosary on his knees for an hour every night?” Rosie asked in utter disbelief.

Freddie shrugged. “I asked, and he said he was praying all Fifteen Mysteries.” He shrugged. His parents were Dutch Reform. 

“Well, I see you haven’t been properly terrorized by the Church. If Klenzendorf is Catholic, he should be praying the rosary every day anyway.” Rosie looked at the late summer roses again. Her eyes softened as did her voice. “They really are pretty. Thank you, Freddie.”

Freddie smiled again. “You’re welcome. Good day.” Freddie skipped down the steps to the street and walked home. He found Karl in the office berating Gerti Rahm. As Freddie and Gerti passed, she whispered, “He’s in a mood today.” Freddie sighed. Karl didn’t sulk when he was angry; he just yelled. He sulked when he was afraid.

Karl looked up from a table where he had laid out a pretend battle with his toy soldiers. “Where’ve you been?” he growled.

“Out. Took flowers to Frau Betzler, sir.”

Karl stared at Freddie. “Why?”

“Because I saw her talking to the doctors this morning, sir. She looked really upset.”

“Where’d you get the flowers?”

“I pruned some rose bushes in a church yard.”

Karl sighed. “Did she say anything about me?”

“Still really angry. I wouldn’t get too close.”


	7. Chapter 7

##  Tuesday, August 15

Karl didn’t like hospitals. He’d spent too much time in them. He was able to stomach the smell of death in the aftermath of combat, but after being forced to live with it mingled with carbolic acid sanitizer for months, he wanted to avoid it inside. He carried his cap under his arm as he approached the ward _schwesters **[1]**_. “Johannes Betzler?”

“East Ward, first bed so we can watch him.”

Karl tightly smiled. Jojo was the only small child in the hospital, though he was on a ward reserved for soldiers under nineteen, which was distressingly full. Karl approached the white bed cautiously. Jojo looked tiny in the adult bed, properly bandaged and tucked in. He had on the smallest grey gown they had, but it was much too large. Karl heard the ward doctor talking about the next patient over. The doctor was coming toward Jojo. “Good morning, Captain.”

Karl nodded. “ _Morgen_. How’s Johannes doing?”

“As well as can be expected. No sign of infection. Another week or so, and we can get all those stitches out.”

“What about his eye?”

The doctor looked up from the chart and saw Karl’s bad eye. Someone had really butchered that. The doctor was surprised Karl didn’t cover it up with a stylish eyepatch. “No shrapnel, no burn, no rupture, thank goodness.”

“And his eyesight?” Karl asked with a tinge of worry.

The doctor flipped some papers around. He was sure the Betzler boy didn’t have a father in the picture. Maybe this was an austere step-father Frau Betzler had married for convenience? Or, maybe this was Captain Betzler, and she had tossed him out for good reason. “We won’t know for another couple of weeks. He’s still really in and out both from the concussion and the morphine. Tough kid though. The _schwesters_ say he likes to be read to. There are some children’s books in the bed table.”

Karl uncomfortably smiled and nodded. If he left without sitting down, he’d look weak or uncaring. He set his cap on the table and opened the drawer for personal effects to find the book. “Hey, kid. Captain K here. How are you?” Karl set the straight back chair next to the bed and sat down.

Jojo turned his head and opened a sleepy unbandaged eye. He moved his hand toward Karl. 

Karl hesitantly took Jojo’s hand. It was soft and cool, like Rosie’s. “Let’s see what they have to read here. _The Poisonous Mushroom_[2].” Karl grimaced. “ _How Jewish Traders Cheat_. No. _What Christ Said About the Jews_. This can’t be so bad. It ought to be based on the Gospels.” Karl opened the book and skimmed it. He was horrified. The Church had not been fond of Jews while he was trapped in Catechism class, but this was disgusting. “Who writes this stuff?” he whispered to himself. Putting away the Nazi storybook, Karl pulled a well-worn book from his pocket. “This is Clausewitz’s _On War_ , a very important book for military men. I reread it every year. My father gave me a copy years ago. I have here _Book Three: On Strategy_. Let’s read this.”

Karl read Clausewitz aloud, and Jojo’s hand rested on Karl’s arm. As Karl finished “Chapter 18: Tension and Rest,” he felt Jojo’s hand slide away. Looking over, he saw the boy was asleep and judged this a good time to leave. He returned the chair to where it had been and was leaving the ward when he saw Rosie. He couldn’t avoid her. “Frau Betzler.”

“Captain,” Rosie said frostily. The hospital was a Heil free zone in order to preserve the peace and quiet for the patients. She did not extend her hand or invite him to kiss her cheek. 

“Jojo and I were just reading Clausewitz.”

Rosie was taken back. “I don’t forgive you.”

“I don’t expect you to. Good day.” Karl had gotten a few steps away when he turned and caught up with Rosie. “Frau Betzler,” he called to her softly. Rosie whirled around, intensely irritated. Karl stepped close to her, sure of his safety by the fact they were in a hospital. “There’s very inappropriate reading material in the bed table. Far beneath his ability.”

Rosie considered what he said and walked away without comment. She was curious though and opened the bed table. Snatching the Party book out, she marched back to the _schwesters_ ’ desk. “This book is too simple for my son. Don’t you have anything more advanced?”

Karl drove the _kugelwagen_ back to the office. He went upstairs to the office where Gerti and Freddie were doing something, but Karl wasn’t sure what. It was like they were just moving papers from one desk to the other. “Have either of you heard of the book _The Poisonous Mushroom_?”

“Oh, oh,” Gerti exclaimed. “My kids love that book. It’s about how even one Jew can ruin an entire country.”

Karl stared at Gerti and then looked at Freddie. Freddie seemed confused. 

“And there’s also _The Experience of Elsa and Hans with the Strange Man_ where a Jew tries to kidnap children with sweets, and _Inge goes to the Jewish Doctor_ where a Jew doctor rapes girls in the office, but that one is for older girls. It’s a whole series of stories, and we read them all the time. I think we used to have some here. Maybe in the basement.”

Karl slowly turned from Gerti and went into his office. He pulled out a bottle of whiskey and poured himself a large glass. “Finkle!”

“Yes, Captain?” Freddie asked. He was slightly alarmed that it was only nine in the morning and Karl was already drinking.

Karl gulped down his whiskey. “Call around to the old cadet academies and scare up as many copies of _On War_ as you can find. I don’t care what it takes. We’ll pick them up. And look for books about mushroom hunting, how to dress game, books on fixing engines, radios, whatever. And, then I want you to clean the basement.” Karl motioned for Freddie to lean over the desk. “And, if you find any of those insane Nazi children’s books, use them to fire the boiler.”

[1] Hospital nurse

[2]This rather infamous children’s book can still be found on the internet, at least in summarized form. Be warned that it is horribly offensive if you go looking for it.


	8. Chapter 8

##  Wednesday, August 16

Karl took his regular evening walk after dinner. He spent all day with Freddie, lived with Freddie, slept with Freddie. He needed a break from Freddie. It also gave Freddie time to do the dishes and house cleaning. Consciously, Karl walked by the Betzler house. He could see the lit chandeliers, and if he walked under the windows, he could hear the record player. He was walking back to the office when Rosie stepped out in front of him from the darker side street back to the alley. 

“Why are you walking past my house every night?”

Karl shrugged. “You know, anyone on the street can hear your radio.”

Rosie scowled at him. “I don’t need you policing me. The Gestapo does an adequate job.”

“Fine.” Karl began to walk away from her. He heard footsteps and hoped she was running after him, but when he turned he saw a small man in a dark coat. Rosie was nervously trying to open her front door. “ _Abend_ ,” he said to the stranger as the man passed. The man squinted his eyes at Karl, as if trying to memorize everything about him. Karl could hear Rosie still struggling with her lock. She didn’t have on a coat, only a house sweater. Sighing, Karl walked back to Rosie. “Can I help you, Frau Betzler?”

“I just can’t make the lock turn,” Rosie explained. 

Karl put his hand over Rosie’s. He took the keys from her and tried the other one. The lock easily turned. “Maybe we could come to friendly terms? I was quite devastated by what happened.”

Rosie turned her doorknob. “Jojo getting injured or you getting demoted to camp counselor?”

“Both, but Jojo more. I’m not under any illusions about how I have spent the last five years and the devastation I’ve caused or had a hand in. I’ve never liked having to pick up the bodies, bandage them or bury them, and account for them. Jojo’s different. He’s yours.”

“It’s almost like war is wasteful and messy, not at all the glorious endeavor we’re fed by the news reels and magazines. And, you’re part of brainwashing my son into loving it. Goodnight, Captain.” Rosie went in her front door and closed it on Karl.

Karl shook his head and walked away into the darkness. At his building, he swiftly let himself in, checked all the doors and locks on the way upstairs, and found Freddie polishing his boots. Freddie guessed by Karl’s downcast slouch that his walk hadn’t been as enjoyable as normal. “Not a good evening in Falkenheim?”

“Just the Gestapo out poking into everyone’s business. One was lurking, and I caught him. He’ll probably report me for having an inscrutable interest in greeting strangers.”

“The one person my parents knew who joined the Gestapo was the worst shopkeeper in the neighborhood. Dirty business, dirty wares, sloppy tax accounting, or so it was rumored, but did he ever like to gossip.”

“Whoever thought we’d create an entire service for malevolent busybodies and gossips, and then double down by giving them the power of life or death?”

Freddie shook his head in disbelief. “I hear most of them are lawyers and accountants these days.”


	9. Chapter 9

##  Friday, August 18

It had been a few weeks, and Karl was getting used to the rhythm of the office. Gerti came in at eight with Magda hard on her heels. By ten in the morning there was a consistent flow of children in and out of the office, most bored and looking for something to do. Freddie had them cleaning out storerooms and looking through boxes and crates. A few copies of _The Poisonous Mushroom_ were found and immediately declared “too moldy” by Karl. He threw them in the furnace himself in the evening. It was the only satisfying book burning he’d ever attended. More appropriate books, such as an encyclopedia and an atlas were put out on the empty bookshelves of the second floor classroom. For Karl, an empty bookshelf was both a crime and an opportunity. Most of the effluvia stored in the HJ building was junk and trash. The children spent a few days sorting and hauling it to the appropriate scrap yards. 

At noon the children generally scattered back home for the mid-day meal, and many were so distracted by warm weather and the freedom of summer that they didn’t come back until the next day or the day after. Karl was just as happy with his quieter afternoons. He was cleaning out the files and reconciling old inventories and budgets. He was shocked by how much money was initially spent on the HJs in the 30’s and not at all surprised that they were on a shoestring now. The most expensive cost in the program was Gerti’s salary, and she made less than Freddie. 

Glancing up from a file drawer he was looking through, Karl saw Freddie leaning in the open window, watching the street below. “Anything interesting, Sergeant Finkle?”

Freddie was slow to answer. “Not even a stray dog, sir.”

“August.”

“I need to confirm the trucks for next week with the hospital motor pool,” Freddie finally said pulling himself away from watching nothing.

“Good idea, and find out who’s bringing out food and water. We’re supposed to have the kids out there for damn near twelve hours.” Karl found the file he was looking for and went back to his office. He had barely begun a list of what activities the boys needed to do over the winter before indoctrination camp when Freddie walked in.

“Sir, there’s no food being provided the kids.” Freddie’s hands were on his hips, his eyebrows were crossing, and he was about to go into a sergeant’s high dudgeon that his troops were being abused without his permission. 

“NO food?”

“None. They’re supposed to bring something to eat with them.”

“Like hell. Fraulein Rahm!”

Gerti jumped up from her typewriter. “Yes, Captain?”

“Get Vogelfluss on the phone.” Karl pulled out his schedule for next week. “No food. We’ll see about _that_.”

“Ringing you through,” Gerti called.

Karl picked up his silver phone. “Heil Hitler and Grüss Gott, Herr Vogelfluss. Who’s feeding the children _mittagessen_ next week?....I see. So, the children come out as free labor, get worked like slaves, and their parents have to provide them food for the day?....Well, no, that isn’t at all satisfactory. In fact, it is so unsatisfactory that until I get a confirmation that the children will be fed a minimum of a potatoes, bread, cheese, pickles, and lentil soup, I’m not bringing them….I know the crops have to be picked so we can eat this winter. I also know that only about half of what isn’t sent to the Wehrmacht shows up in the market in town, and the other half is sold out the kitchen door at above set price. So, I see some opportunity to get my kids decently fed at someone else’s expense….Sir, how dare you impugn me as a communist union agitator! You get free labor; these kids get fed!....You’re really going to call the Party in Nuremberg and bitch that the _Jugend_ leader is getting above his station? Do it! I dare you! What are they going to do? Send me back to the front! Shoot me because I won’t let the rich _bauern **[1]**_ of Bavaria exploit the youth of Germany! Just try it!” Karl slammed down the phone and smiled at a softly laughing Freddie, who had seen Karl bully petty people before. 

Gerti was aghast. “Captain Klenzendorf, you can’t insult Party members like that.”

Karl smirked. “I can insult them a lot worse than that, Fraulein Rahm. You should see me when I’m really incensed. And, he started it by calling me a communist. He’ll call back in half an hour and say it’s all taken care of.”

[1] Farmers, in the sense of peasant farmers


	10. Chapter 10

##  Monday, August 21

Standing outside the HJ building waiting for Freddie to say that all the children were accounted for, Karl almost reached for his flask. But it was barely six thirty in the morning. They were taking almost a hundred of the children out to a large farm to pick potatoes and other root vegetables. Karl sighed to think his time in the military had dwindled to babysitting. While he was trying to not feel sorry for himself, he heard weeping and snuffling. He looked around and saw a small girl wiping tears on the back of her hand. 

“What is this child doing?” he asked Gerti, pointing to the girl as if he’d never seen a child cry before. 

Gerti shrugged. 

Karl sighed. “Why are you crying?” he asked bluntly.

She sniffled hard and wiped both her eyes. “Because we got a telegram yesterday that my papa’s U-boat was sunk.”

“Oh,” Karl uttered guiltily. He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and crouched down in front of her. She had on an old shirt and a pair of slightly too large boy’s shorts held up by a belt. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” he said gently as he blotted her eyes. He didn’t want to wipe her nose, but it was necessary. He had another handkerchief anyway. 

“And Mama said we had to come today because it got us out of her way.”

“We? You have a brother or sister out here with you?”

“Hans.” She nodded and pointed to an older boy. 

Karl took her by the hand and walked over to the knot of fourteen year olds. “Hans.” Three boys looked at him. “Whose sister?”

The least blonde of the boys raised his hand. “Annachen is my sister.”

Karl glanced over Hans. He was tall and skinny. He hadn’t come into his full weight yet. His face though was tired and drawn, and his eyes had dark circles under them. “Hans,” Karl said taking the boy by the shoulders and guiding him away. He also still had Anna by the hand. “Hans, other than your father, is anyone else in your family away fighting?”

“Our two older brothers. Gerhardt is in Italy, and Willy is in France, last we heard. Our big sister Maria hasn’t been heard from since Leningrad was overrun.”

Karl contained his gasp. This family had given everyone to Reich. “What was your sister doing in Leningrad?”

“She was a staff helper,” he answered quietly.

Karl pressed his lips together. She had probably been some staff officer’s girlfriend, and he wrangled bringing her along on some ridiculous pretense. “Hans, if you have to go, too, and the worst happens, who’s going to be left?”

“Just Annachen and Mama,” he said tearfully.

“And do you want to be remembered as her big brother who consoled her when no one else would or as a self-important jerk?”

Hans put his hand up to his eye to wipe away the tear that had managed to squeeze out. He nodded. 

Karl gave the boy a reassuring shoulder hug. “So, you can ride with the girls, or your sister can ride with the guys. But, you need to take care of her today.” Hans nodded some more. Karl looked down at Anna. She was so small and lost looking. He wondered if he and his brothers had looked like that when their father died. Karl knelt down and hugged Anna while patting her braided hair. She hugged him as tightly around the neck as she could. “You’re going to be ok, Anna. In a little while, you’re going to be ok.” 

Karl relinquished Anna to her brother and walked up to his staff car. “All accounted for Sergeant Finkle?” he asked officially. His annoyance with the day was now ruined by empathy.

“Yes, sir.”

“Load ‘em up.” Karl was about to get into the staff car when he saw two sixteen year old boys in the far back seat. He recalled their names as Christoph and Hans. “Why are you in my car?”

“Herr Wesser always let us ride with him,” Christoph, the dark headed one answered. “You know, because we’re the most senior.”

“Do I look like Herr Wesser?”

“No,” Hans answered. He quickly appended, “Sir,” as he saw Karl’s bad eye begin to squint.

“You two were in charge of the Betzler boy’s patrol, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Hans admitted.

Karl had questioned every child in Jojo’s patrol before writing the report on the incident. “So, you lost a ten year old, wet-behind-the ears DJ in the woods, after trying to make him kill a rabbit and teasing him when he couldn’t?”

Christoph and Hans fidgeted. “Yes, sir.”

Karl eyed them hard. He knew the majority of the children could see his car. “Get on a truck. One with the littlest boys, one with the littlest girls. And, stay with them the rest of the week.”

Christoph and Hans quietly hopped out of the staff car, walked morosely to the proper trucks, and climbed in the backs. The truck where most of the fourteen and fifteen year olds were riding rumbled with low laughter. The two oldest boys had been lording it over all the boys for months.

“Ready to go, Captain,” Freddie said when he returned from making a last check of every truck. 

“Let’s stop and get a rack of beer for the drivers for their dinner.” Karl put on his sunglasses as he got in the front passenger seat. “And, it’s time to rearrange all the patrols and squads. Shake things up a little around here.”

“Yes, sir,” Freddie heartily agreed.

Out at the farm, suitably owned by a family named Bauer, Karl found a farm couple and a few elderly farmhands who were well aware of the benefits and problems that came with having school children pick crops. The children were easily and efficiently organized, instructed, and the drivers from the hospital pressed into helping Freddie supervise the separate teams. Karl had his binoculars in order to keep a distant eye on everyone. He was leaning against a fence smoking when a handsome bay gelding came looking for treats. The horse butted Karl in the back a few times before Karl gave in and petted him. 

“He’s a good boy,” Herr Bauer said walking over to Karl for his own smoke break. “Useless for anything but light cart pulling though. Luckily for him, we don’t have a taste for horse meat around here”

Karl blanched. He’d eaten horse in Russia and still felt like a remorseful cannibal about it. He looked at the horse more critically. He was a fine lined animal. “Is he a _Trakehner_?”

Herr Bauer nodded. “Lots of fancy papers. I used to just board the horse for the family. They lived in town. But the father died, the boy is gone to the Wehrmacht, the girl got married. So now, my grandchildren brush and curry him and ride him at a walk. He’s got a wild side. Jumps beautifully.”

Karl didn’t ask permission, he just ducked under the fence into the paddock. He walked away from the horse and whistled. The horse came to him. “What’s his name?”

Herr Bauer started laughing. “Bretzel. Not his official name, but he likes pretzel bread.” The farmer watched Karl talk to the horse and lead him around the paddock. After a few moments it was obvious that Karl knew horses. “You want to ride him?”

“You don’t mind?”

“Brush him out when you’re done. Just be careful jumping. He’s out of practice. I’d hate to have to tell my grandchildren some reckless graf broke the leg of their Opa’s pet horse.”

Karl shook his head. “I’m not a graf.”

Herr Bauer shrugged. Who but a graf would recognize a Trakehner horse in these parts?

“Sergeant Finkle,” one of the drivers, a private, said as he pointed behind Freddie.

Freddie turned around, expecting to see children rolling on the ground in a fight. Instead, he saw Karl riding high and tight in the saddle and galloping Bretzel full out along the edge of the path into the fields. All Karl needed was a sabre and some oncoming Cossacks. “Officers,” Freddie said dismissively, shaking his head.

In the golden sun of the afternoon, Freddie sat down next to Karl in the grassy meadow that bordered the large creek where the children were playing after a hot and dusty day. He handed Karl a beer and opened his own. Karl took the beer, opened it one handed, and continued to observe the creek bed through his binoculars. “Sergeant Finkle, see those three trees in a group just to our left?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Just in between the first two. What do you see?” Karl handed over the binoculars.

Freddie looked through the binoculars. “Wilhelm Otterbach and Kristin Kravitz making out. And, his hand just went under her shirt.”

“That’s our sign.” Karl took back the binoculars. “You go down and up from the right, and once I’m in perfect position to glare at them from above, blow your whistle.”

Freddie laughed. “Do we really need to?”

Karl stood up but looked back through the binoculars. “Sergeant, I am well acquainted with following a woman down the road to Hell. He’s leading her.”

Wilhelm and Kristin thought they had found the perfect spot on the creek bank screened from the younger kids in the water. They hadn’t thought of being spotted from behind. They lay there in the cool dappled shade hidden away from the world, until they heard a loud blast from a sharp pitched whistle. Both of them jumped up, and the first thing they saw was a disappointed Karl staring down at them. He was standing just like a father, one slightly bent knee and a hand on his waist. His bad eye seethed at such a breach of trust. 

“You,” Karl pointed at Kristin. “Go watch the little girls.”

Kristin brushed herself off and glanced guiltily at Karl before walking upstream. Freddie followed her at a distance. Karl turned his attention to Wilhelm. “Come on, Otterbach.” The boy followed Karl, uncertain of what he was in for.

Karl led the wayward teen back to the trucks parked in the hof’s courtyard. The drivers were lounging under some nearby fruit trees. Leaning on an engine, Karl looked the boy in the eye. “I, too, had a girlfriend when I was your age, so I’m well aware of what’s going through your head. This is neither the time nor the place. Look how many of the little ones are out with us,” Karl lectured sternly.

“Yes, sir.” Wilhelm wanted to look anywhere but in Karl’s bad eye. 

“You two are too young to even be thinking about having sex.” Karl took a deep breath trying to cleanse the feeling of hypocrisy from himself. He’d done the exact same thing at the same age. “You’ve learned how to avoid social diseases and pregnancy, yeah? Know you can buy condoms at the pharmacy?” he asked in a low voice, weary with concern. He’d had this conversation hundreds of times but with young men not boys.

Wilhelm’s ears turned read. “Yes, sir,” he said, barely audible.

“Alright.” Karl put his hand on Wilhelm’s back and steered him over to the drivers. “Watch this one for me.”

“Yes, sir,” one of the drivers said, motioning for Wilhelm. Most of them were only eighteen. 

“And, don’t give him any beer,” Karl added walking away. “These kids are going to be the death of me,” he muttered to himself aloud.


	11. Chapter 11

##  Explanatory Notes

Captain K’s sexuality and Rosie—Taika Waititi confirmed that Captain K and Freddie are gay, which was fairly obvious at the end of “Jojo Rabbit.” MyCaptain K has a more complex sexuality than just het or gay. Men of his class—wealthy, noble, and militaristic—would be expected to marry and have a family no matter their sexual preferences, and their wives would be expected to put up with affairs as long as the affairs were kept quiet and out of the couples’ proper social circle. Divorce was barely acceptable socially or religiously. Karl grew up during a time when homosexuality was not just a sin but illegal and punishable by jail time. There was also no recognition of bisexuality in medicine, psychology, or sexual studies, and lesbianism was a mysterious condition to many. Queen Victoria allegedly didn’t believe it could even exist. Lesbians weren’t even prosecuted under Paragraph 175 in Nazi Germany but as anti-socials; basically, women who didn’t toe the line. 

Gay men marrying women has been common across time and culture. The internet today is well populated with accounts of gay men and their wives coming to terms with his homosexuality as the gay freedom movement has made strides in gay equality. Not all of these marriages are fraught or fail. Quite a few gay men who marry women really do love their wives as much as any hetero man. However, the desire for male sexual companionship and the resultant feelings of rejection and inadequacy on the part of the wife create a mighty rock on which many more of these marriages fail. This is the emotional and moral conundrum MyCaptain K found himself in with MyRosie.

The backstory for MyCaptain K and MyRosie is that Karl fell in love with Rosie as a boy. He held her memory of completely unconditional acceptance and love as the idyll against which he compared every other girl or woman he ever met or was attracted to. Reuniting with her in Berlin and their subsequent relationship as adults was the zenith of his twenties. However, he had to balance his devotion to Rosie with his desire for men. Once Karl admitted that he was gay and Rosie was able to come to terms with that, Rosie permitted Karl his affair with her and his affairs with other men as long as she and he weren’t married. She was very clear that she wanted a husband, a home, and a family and more importantly, primacy in her husband’s life. She did expect that Karl would come to his senses and marry her because that was just what men of their age and class did. Karl, however, was quite clear that he had no intention of engaging in a marriage where he would have to cheat on his wife to sate his sexual desire. Rosie’s affairs with other men was the price Karl knowingly paid to have other men himself, and her eventual marriage to Paul utterly shocked Karl. He had never contemplated that Rosie wouldn’t be his life-long female companion, both emotionally and sexually, nor was he looking for a life-long male companion. To him a man having a male spouse was absurd. Instead, Karl was a rampantly promiscuous young man among the middle and upper class gay men of Berlin. Rosie managed the mundane details Karl’s life and later his business. She withdrew some after her marriage, and though they still remained too close for Paul’s tastes, Paul didn’t push for Rosie to cut Karl from her life. In modern parlance, Rosie and Karl maintained a committed, emotional affair for years after she married. They just stopped sleeping together. Paul even called Karl Rosie’s “first husband” and compared dating her to having an affair with a married woman.

MyCaptain K identifies himself as a gay man who still desires something about women. He doesn’t know if it is their scent, their softness, or even their expected acceptance of him as he is, but it is something captured perfectly by Rosie. He would not call himself in that era a bisexual, as it wasn’t a term used to describe human sexuality. Today, he might more comfortably identify as bisexual. Karl is also highly promiscuous, not because he is gay or bisexual, but because he uses sex to gauge his own self-worth as well as a substitute for emotional closeness. He has suffered too many ruptured relationships: his mother when he was kept away from her during her pregnancies, his grandmother, his father, Rosie as a child, Rosie as an adult, the first boy he ever had sex with as a teen on an isolated farm as well as the young man he first fell in love with during university, and even the sudden brutal, betrayal by Walther Krieger. Another aspect of Karl’s promiscuity is that as a well-off young man, he could sleep around without censure due to his privileged social and economic status. It’s part of his oblivious arrogance. 

Reuniting once again with Rosie in Falkenheim comes at a time when Karl is in a depressed and anxious state despite Freddie’s best efforts. Karl’s level of PTSD is pronounced given the recent rape and threatened execution. Rosie momentarily lifts the fog and Karl can see a safe harbor away from everything. It’s almost a fever dream or a fantasy. Then, Jojo blows himself up, and Rosie casts Karl out for only the second time ever. In the past she was always his protector and avenging angel. He desperately wants her and everything she has ever been and represented to him. Freddie is doing yeoman’s work trying to manage and take care of Karl as well as be a proper and competent sergeant, but his reality now has to compete with a fantasy. Part of the reality of Karl’s relationship with Freddie is that Karl also has to keep Freddie physically safe from the Gestapo and military justice. 

Why would Rosie have an affair if she loves Paul so much? Bluntly put, no one is taking care of MyRosie emotionally. She has no family on either her side or the Betzlers. In the book Caging Skies, Grandma Betzler—who did vote for the Anschluss—lives until 1946, however in the movie it’s just Rosie and Jojo. She hasn’t seen her husband in at least two and a half years. The photo is Inge’s ID card is three years old in late winter/early spring 1945, and at the beginning of the movie, it is well known about town that no one has heard from Paul Betzler for two years. Depending on when Paul was conscripted, she may have only seen him intermittently since 1939 or 1940. She is taking care of two children, trying to quietly work against a government she reviles which will execute her for her efforts, and she is also surrounded by fear and want while maintaining a very cheery, if sarcastic, facade for everyone around her. 

Then, Inge dies. In the book, she dies of complications of diabetes type 1. The movie does not detail Inge’s death, only that she has died and not many people know about it. So, Rosie has a secret other than her resistance activities. Keeping a ration card you weren’t entitled to in Nazi Germany would garner the death penalty. Rosie is under an enormous amount of stress. People relieve stress with sex, and for MyRosie, Karl, her oldest friend and lover in the world, has just appeared out of the blue, giving her a glimpse of a safe harbor for her suppressed feelings and doubts. They are two people who can only safely express themselves to one another due to a shared yet purposely hidden past and the absolute surety that neither will betray the other.


End file.
